


Ford and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Thirty Years

by thesassassin



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Don't Try This At Home, Dubious Science, Gen, Grunkle Ford Needs A Hug, Grunkle Ford's Portal Adventures, Journal 3, Mild Gore, Near Death Experiences, Vomiting, and possible Sin, don't worry he doesn't actually die, fiddauthor if you squint in later chapters, gratuitous disco music, i don't mean library sex i mean really nice books, library porn, rating mostly for language and probable violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-09 07:19:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7792063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesassassin/pseuds/thesassassin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s trapped in a different dimension, there are monsters converging on him, and whatever drove Fiddleford out of his mind is surely going to subject him to the same horrors. And he doesn’t even have his glasses. </p>
<p>Ford's adventures in the portal, ft. Queen</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Freak out in a moorage daydream, oh yeah..._

* * *

“Some brother _you_ turned out to be!”  
Ford admits he didn’t part ways with his brother on the best of terms, but he didn’t think their reunion was going to go _this_ badly.  
“You care more about your dumb mysteries than your family? Well then, you can have them!”  
Stanley plants his hands on Ford’s chest and shoves, and Ford, always the weaker one, stumbles backwards, and his feet have left the ground and he realizes, _oh hell, the portal_. His vision is whiting out, or it might just be the light from the portal, and his voice is overlapping with his brother’s so he’s not sure if Stanley heard his plea to _do something_ , so he just throws his journal at his brother. And then he’s on the other side of the portal, floating in darkness. In front of him is a fuzzy circle showing the inside of his lab, and then that blinks out of existence. Ford avoids swearing as a general rule, but the only phrase he can think of to describe his current situation is _fucking shit_. He’s trapped in a different dimension, there are monsters converging on him, and whatever drove Fiddleford out of his mind is surely going to subject him to the same horrors. And he doesn’t even have his glasses.    
            The last problem is the most easily solved, as Ford always carries a spare pair of glasses. He does feel better having them on, though part of him wishes he couldn’t see this place clearly. “Floating in space” is the best description he can find, but that doesn’t quite cover what he’s experiencing. “Floating in space while on LSD”, maybe, or “being inside a storm cloud full of lightning and rainbows and also hell itself”, or “swimming underwater in a pool filled with tie-dyed vinegar”, or “ohgodohgodohgodohgodimgoingtodie”. The worst part about it all, the part that makes him feel like throwing up (and he would probably start heaving if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s in zero gravity and not sure where the vomit would _go_ ) isn’t the psychedelic setting. The worst part is in front of him, sitting on what looked like a throne made of nightmares, and rubbing his hands together in glee. Bill Cipher.  
            Surrounding the demon are the monstrous creatures Ford saw when he first entered the dimension; it makes sense that they’re Bill’s henchmen.  
  “Look who decided to pay me a visit!” Bill leans forward, his face (or rather, bow tie) crinkling in a way that makes it seem like he’s smiling with his eye. “Care for a game of intergalactic chess? This time, you’re the pawn!”  
 One of his minions leaps forward, and Ford dives for cover behind a nearby floating rock. The beast, a monstrosity consisting only of fingers and teeth, passes his hiding place and Ford breathes a sigh of relief before kicking off again, going from rock to rock, looking for a better shelter. More of the creatures are hunting him now, egged on by Bill. Ford reaches an asteroid that’s large enough to be straying into planet territory and floats around it, hoping to find a crater big enough to hide inside. Unfortunately, the rock is maddeningly smooth, and for a wild moment Ford considers just giving up and turning himself in. It would be so much easier, and he’s so tired. He leans against asteroid, only to find that what he thought was solid rock is in fact a cave entrance, masked by shadows. He stumbles inside.  
            The cave is decent-sized, and already occupied. Four creatures huddled around a fire look at him warily. Ford raises his hands in what he hopes is a universally-recognized gesture of peace, and steps closer to the fire. One alien stands up. It’s maybe three feet tall, rodentlike, and has a metal arm. It makes a drawn-out chirping noise and all four aliens look at Ford expectantly. Ford shakes his head.  
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” The group doesn’t look overtly hostile, nor do they look in any shape to fight, but he still hopes they don’t attack him. The rodent alien chirps at him, and Ford shakes his head again.  
            One of the other aliens is searching inside their…poncho? Some kind of garment. They pull out a small machine and hold it out to Ford with a triumphant-sounding screech. Ford takes it, nonplussed, and the alien lifts up the gill-like fringe on one side of their head to reveal a similar device. Ford looks at the other three; they’re all wearing the device in their ears (or approximately where one would expect an ear to be, anyway). Ford turns the machine over in his hands. There’s a small piece of oval metal with mesh on one side, kind of like a speaker, and something that looks like a more complicated version of a circuit board, and a band to attach it to the ear. The band is covered in complicated squiggles. Some of them look familiar from Bill’s teachings; most are unintelligible, and then, so small he almost misses it, the Roman alphabet. _Dimensional Translator_. Well, that’s promising. Even so, he’s cautious as he loops the band around his ear and positions the speaker.  
            “Okay. Is that…is this right?”  
“Can you understand me now?” the rodent alien says. Ford blinks. He can hear the words, in slightly robotic-sounding English, in his ear, but he can also hear the chirping of the alien’s own language. It’s odd.  
“Yes, I can understand you. This is quite a remarkable piece of technology!”  
The alien who gave it to him tilts their head. “This? It’s a K127X. _Very_ outdated, but then those with no feet shouldn’t turn down a chair, no matter how wet it is.”  
“No, I suppose they shouldn’t…” Ford wonders if there’s a similar translator for idioms.  
“Well, stranger, unless your eyes are lying you’re no friend to the Triangle, so you must be His enemy, or sorely lost to have ended up in His realm,” the rodent alien says.  
“You mean Bill?” At the mention of the name, all four cover their ears with sounds of disgust. “Sorry. The triangle,” Ford amends. “No. I thought he was my friend, but he deceived me, and now, well, now he’s out for my blood.” Ford glances behind him. The unearthly howls and laughter can still be heard, but a faint “Yes! Yes! Dance for your life!” suggests that Bill has found someone else to torment.  
“Aye, the Triangle has no friends, though many have made the same mistake. He and His minions live in this Nightmare Realm, but as you can see, it’s not exactly stable. Normal laws don’t apply here.” The rodent alien gestures to the fire, which, now that Ford looks at it, doesn’t seem to have an actual source of fuel. It’s also sparkly. “The triangle has been searching for a more stable playground for more rotations than I’ve been alive. He just needs a body to take over.”  
Ford nods, feeling sick at what he might have unleashed on the world. “Yes. He almost had mine. I’d like nothing more than to destroy him for it.”  
“A worthy goal, stranger. Come, share in our heat and food.”  
            Ford cautiously sits down and holds his hands out to the fire. He hadn’t realized how cold he’d been up until now. An alien with more horns than face hands him a flask that he sips from cautiously, in case it turns out to be poisonous to humans or something disgusting, like blood or grape juice. It’s water, thankfully.  
            Ford doesn’t know how long he stays with the aliens; the light from outside remains a sickening shade of green, and his watch seems to have stopped when he entered the portal, but he would guess a few hours. It’s long enough for him to tell the group the whole sorry story of his experiences with Bill, and for the aliens to tell him their story. They were asteroid miners until their ship malfunctioned and drove straight through a wormhole. The horned alien had been their pilot, and Ford has a lot of questions for him. The “Galactic Positioning System” their ship used sounds quite remarkable, and the confirmation of Einstein-Rosen bridges (outside the one in his basement) gets him so excited he has to stand up and pace in circles, much to the amusement of the aliens. It also gives him an idea for how to defeat Bill.  
“What do you think the odds of my getting back to my home dimension are?” he asks.  
The aliens exchange glances. “We’ve been here almost a full rotation, and we’ve yet to find our way back,” the rodent alien says finally. Ford isn’t entirely sure how long a “rotation” is, but it doesn’t sound promising. “Wormholes keep opening and closing here, and they all lead to different places.”  
“There’s one nearby that you could look at,” adds the poncho alien.  
“Hmm. And you said B-the triangle is known in other dimensions?” The four nod in unison. Ford frowns, wheels turning in his head. If he can travel to a more hospitable dimension (preferably with a library) learn more about Bill and his weaknesses, build up strength (and preferably some kind of alien army), and then return to the Nightmare Realm…  
            He outlines his Plan to the aliens, who listen raptly and cheer something about an axolotl. He doesn’t question it, though he does wonder how accurate his translator is. They give him directions to the nearest wormhole (although “directions” in this case consists of “you kind of float north for a while and then it’s on your left, you can’t miss it”) and more importantly, give him a flask of water and some food. Ford isn’t sure if it’s food he can eat safely, but it’s better than nothing. One of the aliens, the one that looks kind of like a pig, even goes ahead of him to check that Bill’s cronies aren’t in sight before he leaves the asteroid. And then he’s back out in the hellscape, having been pointed in the general direction of the wormhole.  
            Turns out, making swimming motions with his arms and legs makes him go faster, although it feels more like he’s swimming in Jell-O than in water. Even without the threat of imminent death-by-chess, the Nightmare Realm is an upsetting place to be in. Although the demon is nowhere in sight, Bill’s laughter constantly echoes in his ears, and the bright colors everywhere are kind of painful to look at for too long. He tries swimming with his eyes closed, which helps until he gets hit in the face by a rock. He focuses on his breathing and the weight of his coat until finally, he finds the wormhole.  
            The aliens were right. You can’t miss it.  
            Ford stops dead at the sight of a perfect circle of black amid the kaleidoscopic horror show. He think’s he’s looking at a sky: the darkness is tinted with purple, and there are stars scattered across it. He doesn’t recognize any constellations. The realization feels a little like getting punched in the heart, even though logically he knows it’s highly unlikely that the first wormhole he’d stumble across would lead him home. He takes a few deep breaths, steeling himself for whatever might be on the other side. At least it won’t be Bill.  
            Hopefully.  
                        Ford closes his eyes before he jumps. It helps.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ford goes for a walk, sustains a head injury, and uses his last remaining energy to geek out about alien technology.

_Out in the cold world and far away home, some mother's boy is wandering all alone…_

* * *

The new dimension has gravity. In theory this is an improvement. In reality, it means that Ford is falling very fast all of a sudden. He decides that keeping his eyes tightly shut is the best course of action while he berates himself for never learning how to fall safely. He instinctively curls his knees to his chest, but something tells him that that isn’t right. A word problem from a college physics class flashes into his mind. Jack is skydiving, but his parachute fails to deploy. _Jack knows that landing with his knees bent will reduce the force of impact 36-fold. If Jack is falling from a distance of 10,000 ft. and weighs 180lb, what will the magnitude of the force of Jack’s impact with the ground be?_  
             Ford has no idea if the Backupsmore physics professor’s knowledge of skydiving was accurate or not, but it’s all he has to go on. He uncurls himself until his legs are bent only slightly, and spreads his arms out in the hope that his coat will slow his fall slightly. He should really open his eyes to gauge his height and see what he’d be landing on.  
             By some miracle, Ford’s glasses have stayed on his face. He’s hurtling toward a flat, white surface. It could be snow. It could also be ice, or some kind of pale concrete field, or an enormous sheet of paper… he hopes it’s snow. Snow will cushion his fall, and it’s familiar. The uniformity of whatever he’s heading for makes it difficult to tell how close he is to hitting it, but he has a vague idea that it’s better to land feet-first so he swivels into that position, just in case, and covers his head with his arms for good measure. As it turns out, he falls like that for several more seconds and then plunges into several feet of what seems a lot like snow.  
             Ford seems to be standing on ice, or some other hard surface, and if he looks up he can see a small patch of sky through the hole he made by landing. He manages to claw his way up the surface. Fortunately, there’s a crust of ice above the snow that can support his weight as he gasps for air. It occurs to him that he’s very, very lucky to have landed somewhere with a breathable atmosphere. None of his bones seem to be broken – in fact, he feels pretty good for someone who just fell from the sky, although that might be the adrenaline talking. He stands up and immediately doubles over, vomiting onto the snow. Okay, it’s probably the adrenaline talking. He should try and find help. There must be an alien equivalent of a hospital somewhere nearby, or a town, or at least a friendly individual…  
             He looks around at the bleak and apparently uninhabited wasteland he’s landed in. It’s nighttime but there’s a wide band of light arching across the sky. _Does this planet have_ rings? _Incredible!_ On the horizon is a dark shape that looks like it could be a city skyline, albeit a really weird one. Ford has no idea what awaits him there, or if it’s even a sign of life, but he knows he’ll get too cold if he stays in one place for too long so he starts walking in its direction.  
             As Ford walks, he notices that there are brighter dots of light in the ring that seem to have moved since he first looked at them. They must be moons, which means he can use them to track time and direction. Or he could, if he knew what part of the planet he’s on and the direction the moons orbit. He could probably figure out an approximation if he put his mind to it, but he’s cold and hungry and using most of his brainpower to keep putting one foot in front of the other. He does keep track of the brightest dot, which was directly above him when he landed and is slowly moving toward the horizon.  
             At some point the sky gets lighter, and the ring becomes less visible as the sun rises. Sun _s_ , actually. Ford stops to take in the sight. The planet must be orbiting a binary system of some kind. The daylight makes the air warmer; warm enough that Ford thinks he won’t freeze if he stops moving. The tundra doesn’t have much in the way of shelter, but he finds a slight dip in the ground and curls up there, huddling deeper into his coat.  
             Unsurprisingly, Ford doesn’t get any sleep. He just lies with his eyes closed, feeling sorry for himself (and sorry for Stanley, and Fiddleford, and…) for what feels like an hour but might be less. He tries forcing yawns, counting backwards from 701 in prime numbers, even playing Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons in his head, but his brain refuses to shut down. When it becomes clear that sleep is impossible he groans and stands up and starts walking, same as before.  
             Except now his entire body fucking _hurts_. Without the adrenaline coursing through him, Ford feels like …well, like he fell out of a plane. At least it’s slightly warmer than before, although he can still see his breath puffing out in clouds in front of him. He hopes the radiation from the twin suns won’t cause him too much skin damage.  
             The maybe-city on the horizon doesn’t seem to be getting any closer or more distinct, and Ford’s pretty sure his arm is broken, and he’s utterly lost, and suddenly his legs won’t support him anymore and he sits down heavily in the snow. It occurs to him that he’s probably going to die here. The thought should fill him with dread but instead he just feels acceptance. All he’s ever done is put people in danger, and it would be safest way to ensure that Bill never used him again.  
             _Bill…_  
Ford’s Plan pushes its way to the forefront of his mind. Learn more about Bill, gather the weapons needed to fight him, return to the Nightmare Realm and destroy the isosceles demon once and for all. No, Ford can’t rest until Bill is gone. He slowly, painfully, gets to his feet. A genuine will to live may escape him currently, but at least he has spite and revenge fantasies to keep him going. He takes a weary step forward, and plunges through a weak spot in the ice. He goes down through the snow and breaks through the second ice layer below it.  
             The fall takes him by surprise, and he lands hard. Ford is vaguely aware of voices nearby, something latching onto his arm, but at this point it’s really a lot easier to pass out than to struggle. So he does.

Ford wakes up to the sound of frantic voices.  
“Check its eyes!”  
Something metallic forces his eyelids open. “They’re white and brown.”  
“Good.”  
There are some scuffling noises, and more voices, quieter. Farther away maybe? Ford tries opening his eyes, but wherever he is, it’s painfully bright and he shuts his eyes tightly.  
“Is…is it still alive?”  
Ford feels hands (well, some kind of appendages…) on either side of his head, and another voice saying, “I can’t feel a heartbeat!”  
“Are you sure? It looks mammalian; try lower down.”  
Ford groans and tries to sit up, even though every part of his body objects. “Where…ugh…where am I?” The bright light is just as painful the second time he looks at it, but he forces himself to squint at his rescuers/captors. In front of him is a moving shape. He can’t really make out any details, but the blob is vaguely humanoid and is dark orange.  
“It’s alive!” The blob says, presumably to the owner of the second voice Ford heard.  
“Oh! Can it talk?” Another blob moves into view.  
“Does someone have my glasses?” Is all Ford can think to say.  
“Glasses?”  
“They, they’re these…” Ford makes oval shapes with his hands and holds them up to his eyes. His head feels fuzzy around the edges.  
“Glasses…” The first blob apparently is unfamiliar with the concept, but the second blob is moving around, and then comes closer to Ford.  
“Perhaps these? We found them near where you fall. They appear to be some kind of fused silica apparatus with magnifying properties?” The blob holds them out to Ford, who puts them on shakily. Now he can see the blobs for what they are: orange octopus-like creatures both wearing what look like hazmat suits, though their heads are uncovered.  
“Thank you,” Ford says to the alien who gave him the glasses. He’s pretty sure he has a concussion, because his vision is still blurry, but it’s comforting to have them back. “Uh. What dimension am I in?”  
“This is dimension 78’-02X. You’re on planet Xelphti, in the center of the third quadrant.”  
“Huh.” The words mean nothing to Ford, though the idea that there is some kind of catalogue of dimensions is rather interesting.  
“Excuse us, we must fetch our extraterrestrial specialist. She will be better able to answer your questions.” The aliens exit through a door Ford hadn’t even noticed, leaving him alone in the over-bright room. He’s on a cot that’s too short for him, though someone has moved a box to the end of the bed to prop his feet up. That was nice of them. Ford really hopes the specialist knows medical treatment for humans. His right wrist is the most concerning; he’d thought it was broken at first, but now he thinks it might be dislocated.  
“Hello, traveller!” Another alien comes through the door. Presumably they're the extraterrestrial specialist; the creature is indistinguishable from the first two apart from the color of their suit and their skin, which is redder.  
“Hello.”  
“My name is [a horrific clicking noise], and I expect you have a lot of questions for me?”  
Ford realizes that the alien’s name must not have an English equivalent, hence the translator’s breakdown. “Yes. Um, how do I pronounce your name?”  
“You can call me Hope, if it’s easier. What do they call you?”  
“Stanford Pines.”  
“What species are you?” Hope has some kind of sleek device and is tapping on it with a claw. “There are a lot of bipedal mammals in our database.”  
“I’m a human…homo sapiens?”  
“Fascinating.” Hope looks up. “According to this, you’re the first of your species to arrive in this dimension.”  
“It’s likely. We don’t have much in the way of off-planet travel, let alone inter-dimensional movement.”  
“I see.” Hope looks at his right wrist. “Are the bones here damaged? My people are cartilaginous, but I have some experience with endoskeletal species. I can fix it.”  
“I think my wrist is dislocated. If you know how to reset it, that would be great.” Hope sets her device down and grasps Ford’s hand firmly and pulls. Ford grits his teeth and looks away, trying not to scream, because he’s felt worse pain, Bill’s done worse things to him, and then it’s over and his arm does feel a little better.  
Hope is watching him closely. “You experience pain, but don’t vocalize it…” She taps on her device, and Ford has the distinct impression she’s taking notes. He wonders if the device is some kind of personal computer, and forces away the thought that _Fidds would love to see this!_  
“What is this place?” Ford asks.  
“This is the Xelphti Research Institute. It’s an underground lab that takes up, oh, about half the planet.”  
“That’s incredible!”  
“Well, the surface of the planet isn’t habitable since the oceans froze, so we’ve repurposed it.”  
“Huh.” Ford wonders if this dimension has Tylenol, or at least Band-Aids. He’s about to ask Hope, but ends up yawning instead. “Excuse me. It’s been a long day.” Possibly more than one day; he’s not entirely sure.  
“Of course, you should rest. I’ll come back in…” Hope looks down at her device briefly, “…eight hours, to see how you’re doing.”  
“Okay. Thank you.”  
Hope leaves. Ford can’t see an obvious way to turn the lights off, and he doesn’t think he can stand up without throwing up and/or passing out again, so he doesn’t bother looking for one. He sighs. This isn’t really how he’d pictured going through the portal to be. Bill had told him that he would be an explorer, a pioneer of extra-dimensional travel for his species, and Ford had believed him, like an idiot. Still, if he’d _planned_ on going through the portal, at least he would have supplies with him, like basic first aid equipment, or at least a sandwich. As things stand, he only has the clothes on his back and the contents of his coat pockets.  
             He goes though his pockets anyway, in case there’s something of use, mentally cataloguing his possessions. One (1) pen: blue ink, fairly new; one (1) Swiss army knife: a graduation gift from his father, although Ford has tinkered with it over the years and added a few attachments of his own; five (5) cough drops: at least a year old, but he doesn’t think those things have an expiration date; one (1) Walkman with both sets of headphones: loaded with a cassette that he and Fiddleford put together; one (1) bag of jelly beans: all of them misshapen, just how he likes them; two (2) banjo strings: he doesn’t think they’ll come in handy but he can’t bring himself to throw them away; one (1) handkerchief: stained with various ocular fluids; seven (7) AA batteries: he doesn’t remember putting them in his pocket, so they probably don’t work anymore, but he might be able to extract some metals from them; one (1) set of keys: complete with light-up UFO keychain, although the light seems to be broken; and one (1) wallet: his. The wallet contains $26.18 in cash, a library card, a Gravity Falls Museum of History pass, and two photographs. One is of Ford and Stan at maybe twelve years old, working on the Stan O’War, and the other is of him and Fiddleford. The picture is blurry because it was taken by Fidds while they were running from a gremloblin, but both have wide and slightly manic grins.  
             Ford smiles at the pictures. The memories they evoke are comforting, even if they’re tainted by what happened afterwards. He tucks both photographs back into his wallet for safekeeping and closes his eyes. This time, he manages to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ford has a concussion, punches a squid, and regrets not getting any exercise in the past six years

_I'm a shooting star leaping through the skies, like a tiger..._

* * *

Ford wakes up disoriented. The room he’s in is far too bright, and it’s making his head hurt. His whole body hurts, actually, but his head in particular is throbbing. He hasn’t been this hungover since, since, right after midterms, when Fidds convinced him to loosen up and celebrate the end of exams. How long ago was that, anyway? Last week? Longer ago than that. Ford’s memories are mixed together and slightly out of reach. He graduated college years ago, and he was working with Fidds, and then he – no, oh no, Bill, Bill, _Bill_ , he lost everything he lost Stan he lost – _the portal_ – where is he now? Ford pushes himself into a sitting position on the tiny bed he’s lying on and winces as pain shoots through his arm. He stares down at his wrist. He dislocated it, didn’t he? Shit.   
“Stanford Pines? Ah, you’re already awake.” An alien, an actual _alien_ is standing in the doorway. They’re wearing some kind of protective suit and look sort of like a beige-orange squid being, and they’re holding a thin plastic oval. Ford frowns at the alien. They look familiar; he must have met them before for them to know his name. How long has he been here?  
“I’m sorry, but who are you? What is this place?”   
“You can call me Hope,” the alien tells him, and yes, that sounds familiar. The phrase ‘extraterrestrial specialist’ flashes into his mind. Hope taps at the oval, murmuring something that sounds like “short-term memory loss”. That would explain several things, Ford thinks, although his memory of the past day or so is starting to come back, patchily. He fell at least once, and he might have blacked out? Concussion. He probably has a concussion.   
“I’m in a research building of some sort, aren’t I?”   
“Yes, very good.” Hope’s facial expressions don’t change at all, which is slightly unnerving. Ford has no idea if he’s in friendly hands or not. “I’m part of a research team working on an inter-dimensional database; we’re trying to document as many species and planets as we can.”   
“That sounds fascinating! And a lot of work…”  
“Oh, it is. And that’s why it’s so fortunate that you landed here.”  
“Well, I’m happy to provide information about humans, and the other life forms on my home planet.” Ford wonders if their database has information on Bill. Even if it doesn’t, it would be helpful to get a look at it.   
Hope’s skin flushes red. “Oh, I’m so glad you said that! I’d like to start testing right away – I have a meeting a few days from now, and it would be good to have something like this to present.”   
“Testing?” Maybe it’s the translator, but something about the way Hope is talking is making him uneasy.   
“To collect data. How many senses you have, what your DNA looks like, the composition of your skin, skeletal density, how much blood loss you can survive, pain and pleasure responses. Things like that.”   
“I’m sorry, how much _blood loss I can survive?”_   
“Yes, we do a lot of deprivation tests, as well as exposure and resilience. We usually try to have a larger sample size to allow for a range of strengths, but in this case we’ll just have to use your data.”   
It takes some effort, but Ford manages to stand up, and realizes he’s well over a foot taller than Hope. _Should make escaping easier_.   
“You can’t have my blood! Or anything else. I’d like to leave now, please.”   
Hope’s goes white. “Stanford Pines, you have to stay. You can’t-“   
_Left hook,_ Ford thinks, and punches Hope in the face. Hope falls down, the database device falling from their hands. Ford stops to grab it on his way out.   
“You…you won’t survive on the surface…” Hope coughs. Ford ignores them and heads for the door. Outside are four more of the aliens. Their skin is white like Hope’s, but with electric blue patches that get brighter when they see Ford.   
“It’s escaping!”   
Ford punches two more of them and takes off running, shoving the device in his pocket.   
            He stops after about ten minutes, when his lungs feel like they’re burning and he realizes he has no idea where he’s going.   
Man, he is out of shape.   
            _Think, Ford._ He has to get back to the surface. Sure, it may be a barren wasteland, but at least no one up there wants to kill him in the name of science. He could try and find his way back to the place he fell through, but given he was unconscious for the trip between there and the room he just left, the chances of finding it are slim to none. A better bet is looking for an existing door to the surface. He takes a breath and starts running again, doing his best to ignore the way his whole body hurts.   
A door to the surface. Where is it likely to be? These creatures seem to live entirely underground, so there probably isn’t a regularly used doorway to the outside, but there must be some kind of emergency exit, if nothing else. Probably at the end of some out-of-the-way tunnel somewhere, away from the center of the laboratory. Of course, if he knew where the center of the lab _was_ , it would be easier to find his way to the edge. He has no idea how sophisticated the security here is, but it’s likely most of the aliens know who he is and/or are out for his blood – literally, for once – so just asking for directions is a bad idea. On the other hand, given that the aliens are about four feet tall and apparently weaker than him, he isn’t too worried about running into one, although if he gets caught by a group then he’s done for. He could just keep walking in a straight line until he finds a door? That’s also a bad idea. He could, he could scale a wall and punch through the ceiling…that’s an even worse idea, Stanley’s always been the muscles of the operation…   
            Ford stops and leans against a wall, trying to control his racing thoughts. He really needs proper medical care, but he won’t get that here. Probably won’t be able to get that anywhere on this planet; hell, even this dimension. He doesn’t remember everything the alien – Hope, their name was Hope, right? – had said to him, but he’s pretty sure humans are a rarity here.   
            Scuffling sounds remind him that he’s being chased. Forget the long-term escape plan, right now he needs a way to avoid capture.  
“The adrenaline trail leads this way; it must have gotten into section C!”  
The voice, and the footsteps, sounds like they’re getting closer. Ford takes off running again. The mazelike halls are starting to close in on him and he can’t get enough air into his lungs with each ragged breath, but he forces himself to keep moving.   
            A door! There’s a door. He almost misses it because it’s the same flat shade of white as the hallway, and there’s no door handle. Instead there’s a round hole, slightly too small for his hand to fit in. He does fit a couple fingers through and can feel a latch or something on the other side. He pushes at it, and the door swings open. The time he spent trying to figure out the mechanism cost him his head start and the aliens are right behind him now, so he just dives through the door without looking at what’s inside, slamming it behind him hard enough that he hears something crack.   
            He's in a big clean room, a lab of some description, and in the middle of it is a huge glass column that spans from floor to ceiling. There’s some kind of huge hairy creature standing in it, and more squid-aliens swarming around, all holding oval devices similar to the one he took from Hope and chattering to each other. Ford swallows. _Is that what they would have done with me?_  
“Look!” One of the aliens has spotted him. Ford glances around for an escape. Going out the way he came may be impossible; the fact that his pursuers haven’t appeared yet makes him think he damaged the door enough to render it useless. There! Across the room is another door. He heads for it, only to have the way blocked by several aliens. He backs up, looking around wildly. _Think, Ford_. On a bench to his left is some kind of complicated-looking glass apparatus filled with a bubbling orange liquid. He steps slowly to the side, then in one sudden movement reaches out and grabs the equipment. It’s hot it’s hot it’s very hot and the aliens have all gone pale, and he throws it across the room. It explodes in a shower of broken glass and a cloud of smoke that smells awful, but the aliens are scattering and an alarm is sounding. Ford pulls his coat collar over his nose and mouth and runs for the door. He opens it much more easily this time.   
            He’s in another corridor, but it looks more occupied than the previous ones. It’s better lit, there are more doors, and signs in another language pointing in various directions. And, most importantly, it’s deserted. He picks a direction at random and starts walking, slowly and painfully, down the hall. A sign pointing the way he’s walking reads

  
vckvirnvmgzo gizmh-wrnvmhrlmzo gvxsmloltb  
WZMTVI   
zfgsliravw kvihlmmvo lmob

Ford has no idea what it means, but the sign itself is just a small beige placard, and in his experience signs about danger usually look more, well,  dangerous.   
“Attention all employees. Section D is now on lockdown. Scenario UL-1/W is now in effect; please evacuate the danger zone immediately. Section D is now on lockdown.”   
The voice is automated, and must be coming from hidden speakers in the ceiling. Ford has no idea what part of the facility he’s in right now, but something tells him it’s probably section D. Sure enough; squid-aliens are streaming into the hallway. He sighs.  
“Intruder! The intruder is here!”   
There are maybe fifty of the creatures in the hall now, and all of them are looking at Ford. He takes a breath and starts running again.   
            The corridor starts to get darker the further he goes, and then it, about a hundred feet ahead of him, it stops. His heart sinks until he gets close enough to see that it ends in a door. The door is covered in brightly colored stickers with symbols that he assumes mean “DANGER” and “KEEP OUT” and “SEE THIS MISSHAPEN SKULL? THAT’S ALL THAT WILL BE LEFT OF YOU IF YOU GO PAST THIS POINT”. There’s also a more official-looking plaque that reads _“KLIGZO GL WRNVMHRLM HRC SFMWIVW ZMW VRTSVVM”_. Ford doesn’t bother trying to decipher it, just throws his whole body weight against the door and hopes it isn’t locked. It crashes open, and it occurs to him that it may have been locked against four-foot squid creatures, and that there’s probably a reason for that and for the danger signs, and that the reason is probably the shimmering tear in the middle of the room. Another portal.   
            The room is set up a bit like his basement at home, except there’s no structure surrounding the portal. It must have been naturally occurring. The other side of the tear appears to be a field. It looks…idyllic, almost, except for the sky, which is the color of blood. Ford looks behind him at the rapidly approaching mob and then back through the rift. _Those with no feet shouldn’t turn down a chair_ , he thinks, a little hysterically, and runs through the rift.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ford boldly goes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating yesterday guys, school's started and my life is pretty hectic right now. Also, I haven't had much of a chance to edit this chapter, so it's probably a little choppier than usual - also, it got hella dark somehow, so. yeah.

_Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me, yeah, I'm stayin' alive…_

* * *

Without the additional stress of freefalling through the sky, Ford is able to properly appreciate how nausea inducing it is to travel between dimensions. Stepping from the lab to the field is more dizzying than the worst carnival rides Stanley had forced him onto as a child; his head is swimming as he staggers through, and he just barely keeps from falling over. He ends up retching for an unpleasantly long time afterwards, though he doesn’t actually throw up. Normally Ford would count not-actually-vomiting as a win, but in this case it’s a reminder of how empty his stomach is.   
            Once he’s certain his body isn’t going to rebel any further, Ford straightens up and surveys the terrain. The field stretches as far as he can see, and the grass is long and wild enough that he reassesses ‘field’ to be ‘long-abandoned and worryingly large field, or hopefully just a prairie’. The sky above him is a deep red, giving the whole scene an eerie feel. The sun, which is almost directly above him, is much larger than on Earth. A part of his brain is running hypothetical scenarios and variables of how the proximity of the sun to the planet must affect the flora and fauna here, but the rest of him is focused on remaining conscious and upright long enough to find something sentient enough to help him. It’s not an easy task, given how lightheaded and breathless he feels. Ford frowns; he’s not sure how concerning that should be in his current situation. He’s had enough experience with missed meals – whether accidentally or Bill-induced – to know that he could be feeling this way from lack of food and water, or it could be the head injury, or lingering effects from going through the most recent portal, or it could be the pain from his arm…  
            Ford swears quietly. The mere fact that he has such a laundry list of physical problems is concerning. He needs to find people, or at the very least shelter. He looks back through the portal – the squid-aliens are still milling about, but they don’t seem in danger of following him – and starts walking directly away from it. It’s noticeably warmer on this planet, though still slightly cool to him, and he’s glad of his coat.   
            The walk starts to get monotonous after a while, the sea of long grass continuing to be the only thing in his field of vision. The occasional bird wheels overhead, too small to pose a danger to him. Ford suddenly remembers his Walkman, and digs it out of his inner coat pocket. It still works, though the sound is distinctly cracklier than he remembered. The track that starts playing is an old Wasp Goshes song that he’s always liked, and it makes the whole ordeal a little easier.   
            The most concerning cause of dizziness – that he’s on a planet with a different atmospheric makeup than Earth, and isn’t getting enough oxygen – doesn’t occur to Ford for some time. It doesn’t occur to him as he keeps walking, ignoring the alarm bells from every body part telling him that something’s wrong, because they’ve been blaring since before he went through the portal and he’s gotten good at ignoring them. It doesn’t occur to him as the sun goes down; a low, quavering howl sounds in the distance, and he becomes more preoccupied with finding shelter than with his suddenly blurry vision. It doesn’t occur to him as he settles down for the night underneath a couple of scrubby trees that he’s made sure weren’t already occupied. He does make note of some berries growing on a vine wrapped around one tree. Assuming they’re not poisonous, they could be his next meal. Ford buttons up his coat more securely and closes his eyes. He’ll investigate the berries more carefully in the morning; hopefully, they won’t kill him.

Ford is woken by a horrific screeching that sounds like it’s right next to his ear. He cracks open one eye and comes face-to-face with a bird. It’s maybe the size of a chicken, but with a much more impressive wingspan and greenish-brown plumage. Ford sits up and scrambles backwards. The change in perspective makes him realize that the bird is sitting on the lowest branch of the tree, and was staring down at him.   
“Sorry, I didn’t realize this was someone else’s bed,” he says. The bird cocks his head at him and screeches again. It doesn’t appear to be afraid of him at all. Ford cautiously stands up, and regrets it immediately as the entire world spins around him. His head is pounding; actually, his whole body is achy. He’d think he has the flu, but he doesn’t feel feverish. He throat aches, and his mouth tastes like something died halfway through taking a shit on his tongue. He runs his tongue around his mouth a few times to make sure that isn’t actually the case. Ford takes a few deep breaths, and drags his attention back to the matter at hand. The bird is still staring at him, seeming curious more than anything else. Ford contemplates killing it for food, but then realizes he has no means of starting a fire. Berries it is, then. They’re growing on the same tree that the bird is currently occupying. Ford takes a step toward it, then another. The bird just watches until he actually puts a hand on the tree trunk; then it erupts into another cacophony of shrieks. Ford winces at the sound.   
“Whoa, hey, I’m not gonna take all of them!” he’s pretty sure the bird can’t understand him, but with any luck keeping a gentle tone of voice will calm it down. “I need to eat too, buddy. I’ll leave plenty of berries for you.”   
The bird isn’t placated, and swats Ford’s hand away with a sharp talon when he tries to pick a berry.   
Ford groans. “Okay, then.” He fishes around in his pockets and pulls out a cough drop. The bird tracks his movements as he waves it back and forth. “Hey, yeah, look at this! Isn’t it interesting, let’s look at this instead…” he can’t quite make the words come out of his mouth neatly anymore, but he’s got the bird’s attention, and when he throws the cough drop away from the tree the bird squawks and flies after it. Ford sighs in relief. He decides not to waste time on picking berries, and instead yanks off a branch of the vine. Who knows, maybe the leaves are edible too. Or at the very least, not actually deadly. He’s hungry enough to take ‘not actually deadly’.   
            Ford retreats to a safe distance from the trees and the bird, which he suspects will return soon, and examines the berries more closely. They’re large, round, and a glossy blue-black color. Nothing about the plant screams ‘poison’ to him, but things may work completely differently here. Ford decides he’d rather die of food poisoning than starvation, and puts a berry in his mouth. He chews it slowly, in case his lips or tongue have some immediate bad reaction, but when nothing untoward happens in the first five minutes he swallows. It tastes like a combination of blackberries and battery acid, and the best thing he’s ever eaten. He forces himself to wait about ten minutes before eating another one. When it doesn’t make him throw up or start frothing at the mouth, he shoves an entire handful in his mouth. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until now, but his stomach is growling and the juice from the berries is soothing on his dry throat.  
            Ford fills his pockets with berries and starts walking again. Having food in his stomach is a definite improvement over the past day or so (he’s not actually sure how much time has passed since he first entered the Nightmare Realm), but he still feels a bit like he could keel over at any minute. He’s walking at a fairly sedate pace, but still can’t quite catch his breath, and there’s a clenching pain in his chest – not to mention the dull ache from his arm, and the pounding in his head, and the general, whole-body pain that comes from pushing himself well past his physical limits.   
            A few more birds pass overhead, and once he thinks he sees some kind of dust-colored mammal running through the grass, though it might just be the wind, or his eyes playing tricks on him; he can’t see that well, for some reason. He tries cleaning his glasses on his sleeve, but it doesn’t help much. The grass gradually gets shorter and sparser, giving way to dusty ground that feels oddly spongy underfoot. Twisted bits of metal start to litter the ground. They look more like the product of a plane crash than a sign of civilization, but it’s encouraging to see some sign of intelligent life. After what feels like an hour of walking on the new terrain, Ford is out of breath enough that he has to stop and pant for a while. The realization that the air he’s breathing might not be quite breathable finally dawns on him, and he swears inventively and at length. This is the one problem he has absolutely no way of solving. And now his chest is tightening with panic as well as asphyxiation, which really isn’t helping but what is he supposed to do about? _Breathe, Ford._ But breathing is going to kill him. He sinks to his knees, scrubbing at his eyes in a vain attempt to clear his vision. He really is going to die this time, betrayed by his own respiratory system; Bill’s going to win, he’ll never make things right with Fiddleford, and his body will spend eternity on a planet that isn’t even his, surrounded by piles of scrap metal…   
            Something about the metal has been nagging at him for a while. If Ford focuses enough on the nearest piece he can make out scratches and raised bumps on the surface. A serial number? A message? Random dents? He crawls closer until the metal is within reach and runs his fingers over the pattern. It seems deliberately placed, but he had no idea what it means and he isn’t going to figure it out. Ford lets the last of the poisoned air escape his lungs as his eyes droop closed, hand still resting on the metal. I  
            f he were still conscious, Ford would feel the metal growing white-hot under his hand, and see a jet of blue light erupt straight to the heavens, a distress signal activated by body heat. If he stayed conscious after that, he’d see the pieces of metal he’d assumed were junk swivel in place, unseen cameras zooming in on him. And if, a few minutes later, Ford was still awake, he would hear an electronic voice babbling soothingly in binary to him. As things are, however, Ford’s limp form doesn’t register any of this, or move at all as metallic claws close in on him from above.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay I know most sci-fi robots are all smooth talking and shit but. what if they had the same voice control capabilities as Siri.

_I'm alive - and the world shines for me today. I'm alive - suddenly I am here today_

* * *

Ford isn’t entirely sure where he is when he wakes up, but given that he hadn’t expected to wake up at all it’s so far so good. He can breathe properly again, and his arm is wrapped in bandages, which are both further good signs. Oxygen means he’s in the hands of someone who has experience with humans, or at least aerobic organisms, and the bandages mean he's gotten some kind of medical treatment while unconscious. The million-dollar question is whether he’s being treated out of a genuine to save him, or if whoever rescued him wants to harvest his blood for testing. Ford decides to worry about that later, because he actually feels like a human instead of a ball of pain, and it’s a nice change. His head is pleasantly fuzzy and he’s lying on something soft. He must be on a shit-ton of painkillers to be feeling this good after he’s gone through.  
Ford can’t move his head that much, but from what he can see of his surroundings he’s in some kind of glass enclosure, which in turn is in a vaguely hospital-looking room. Everything is either white or shiny chrome, apart from screens set up at intervals with lines of green script flashing across them. Wires snake across the ceiling and down the walls, connecting to the plethora of machines surrounding him. He can’t see any other life forms around him, which raises the question of who brought him in.  
“Greetings! Patient!”  
Ford cranes his neck as much as possible and sees one of the machines gliding towards him. _Must be a robot._ The robot pauses a couple feet away from where Ford is lying. It’s shaped a bit like an eight-foot tall starfish, and like the rest of his surroundings, is made of shiny metal. The center part of its body is filled with flashing lights and lines of text.  
  Ford tries to ask where he is, but somewhere along the line the message gets confused and what actually comes out of his mouth is, “Have you come to take my blood?”  
The robot’s lights flash several times, and then it announces, “Blood!” There’s a long enough silence for Ford to get worried before it continues, “Your! Blood! Oxygen! Saturation! Is! Dangerously! Low! For! An! Aerobic! Mammal!”  
“Okay.” Clearly this robot wouldn’t be passing the Turing test anytime soon. Ford purses his lips; if he knew how the robot was programmed to parse sentences, this would go a lot smoother. “How are you treating me?” he tries. More flashing lights, and a low whirring sound.  
“Your! Treatment! Plan! Is!” a brief pause, filled with more whirring, “Oxygen! Immersion! Therapy! For! Hypoxemia! And! Your! Dislocated! Joint! Has! Been! Reset!You! Have! Been! Given! Oxycodone! Intravenously! For! Pain! Treatment!”  
Oxycodone would explain the way his brain seems to have been replaced by cotton wool. Ford isn’t complaining.  
“Where am I?”  
“You! Are! In! Federal! Critical! Medical! Bay! Outpost! Number! One! Zero! Zer-“  
“Okay, okay, thank you,” Ford cuts off the robot before it spews out an entire serial number in its irritating tinny voice. The robot whirrs again in a way that manages to seem put out. Ford considers the situation. He doesn’t seem to be in immediate danger, although he might go out of his mind with boredom if he has to spend too much time in the company of the robot. The friendly robot that saved his life, Ford reminds himself sternly.  
“How long will I be here for?” “Your! Condition! Has! Stabilized! Since! We! First! Picked! You! Up! We! Anticipate! Within! Four! Thousand! One! Hundred! And! Eight! Minutes! You! Will! Be! Able! To! Be! Safely! Transported! To! A! Fully! Staffed! Hospital!”  
“Thanks.” Ford does the math in his head. He doesn’t think he’s spent three consecutive days resting since he was a child.  
“You! Should! Rest! Now!”  
“Uh, okay.” Ford watches as one of the robot’s arms suctions onto the side of the glass chamber. “What are you-“ his eyelids are growing heavier; is he being drugged again somehow? He tries to open his mouth and ask what’s going on, or scream, or something, but instead his treacherous mind loses consciousness again.

Ford wakes up in a different room – no, the same room as before, but he’s no longer in the glass enclosure; instead, he’s lying in what seems remarkably similar to an Earth hospital bed. The same panoply of machines as before is surrounding him, although he can now see that they’re connected to patches and wires on his arms. He can feel something covering the lower part of his face. An oxygen mask, probably. His head feels clearer now, but he’s also experiencing pain with renewed clarity. He still feels in infinitely better shape than he did on the other planet, though.  
“Greetings! Patient!” The robot, whom Ford privately nicknames Polaris, has appeared from somewhere. Ford attempts to sit up, but finds that besides being too weak to move properly, the wires around his arms act as restraints keeping him tethered to the bed. An alarm bell begins to sound in his head.  
“Why did you tie me down?” he tries to ask, but the mask muffles his words. Polaris whirrs at him.  
“Your! Vocalisations! Were! Not! Recognized! Please! Try! Again! Or! Press! The! Green! Button! To! Activate! Nonverbal! Communication! Protocols!”  
A green light starts to flash on a panel next to Ford’s bed. He manages to reach it, sparking a long series of beeps and flickering lights from Polaris. Finally the robot quiets down.  
“Nonverbal! Communication! Translation! Enabled!”  
  Ford tries and fails to come up with a concise hand gesture for “why am I tied up and how pure are your intentions towards me”, and instead settles for tugging at the wires, gently enough to not displace them in case they're keeping him alive somehow.  
A long silence, then, “Is! Your! Question! About! The! Nature! Of! The! Machines! Here!”  
Ford gives a thumbs-up with his uninjured hand.  
“The! Federal! Critical! Medical! Bay! Monitors! Your! Vital! Signs! Along! With! Other! Information! To! Inform! Your! Treatment! Plan!”  
Ford tugs more sharply at the wires.  
“If! The! Equipment! Is! Restrictive! It! Can! Be! Adjusted!”  
Ford gives another thumbs-up. Polaris starts whirring again, and then a few nearby machines join in. Ford watches with interest as the wires slacken. He tries to sit up again, with more success this time.  
“Are! You! Comfortable! Now!”  
Yet another thumbs-up. Polaris’ lights flicker.  
“Your! Treatment! Plan! Has! The! Following! Update!” A long pause. “Your! Oxygen! Saturation! Level! Is! Now! Sixty! Eight! Millimeters! Of! Mercury! Your! Condition! Is! Stable! Due! To! An! Influx! Of! Patients! Triage! Protocol! Recommends! That! You! Be! Transferred! To! The! Nearest! Staffed! Hospital!”  
The robot’s stilted speech pattern makes it a little difficult for Ford to understand it when it talks for that long, but once he's managed to parse the sentence he gives another thumbs-up. He's glad that it seems to be a universal gesture.  
“Now! That! You! Are! Conscious! Your! Breathing! Support! Will! Be! Removed! In! Preparation! For! Transfer!” This is followed by a full minute of beeping and flashing from Polaris and from other machinery. A panel on one of Polaris’ spokes slides back, and a long mechanical arm emerges. Ford flinches as the arm gets close to his face, but it removes the oxygen mask gently. Ford takes a few deep breaths; his lungs seem to be functioning better now. The wires and electrodes on his body all retract, seemingly of their own accord. Polaris whirrs.  
“You! Will! Now! Be! Transferred! To! The! Ketos! Regional! Hospital! Located! In! Sector! Six! One! Eight! Of! The! Ketos! Region! Of! Planet! Drahon! Travel! Time! Approximately! Ninety! Six! Minutes!” Ford feels his bed lift several inches into the air, and then start slowly gliding forwards. He grips the edges of the bed tightly. The medical equipment being roboticized is one thing, but his _bed_ is a whole other level of unsettling.  
“The! Federal! Critical! Medical! Bay! Wishes! You! A! Full! And! Pleasant! Recovery!”  
Ford remembers he can talk now. “Thanks?” he says, voice hoarse and betraying his uncertainty.  
 His bed floats out of his room and down a series of ever-narrowing hallways, and then comes to a halt at a set of double doors. Moments later the doors open, and a reptilian creature wearing what looks like black hospital scrubs appears. The alien presses a few buttons on the side of Ford’s bed, setting it in motion once more.  
 The double doors lead to a cavernous metal cube. Shelves line three sides of it. Ford’s bed slides onto one of them, and he hears a series of clicks as it locks into place. He can see several other occupied shelves, though he doesn't recognize any of the life forms lying there. The reptilian alien presses a button and the doors swing shut again. Then it disappears through another door; Ford catches a glimpse of a cockpit of some kind, manned by another lizard person. The two confer, and then the alien comes back out. “[unintelligible hissing] liftoff,” it says. Ford frowns, and puts a hand to his ear. His translator must have gotten damaged. Before he can get too worried, there's the sound of an engine roaring to life, and the whole cabin jolts at an angle. They must be about to take off. For another planet. They're going to another planet, and he's on a spaceship, and he can't believe it took this long for that piece of information to sink because this is possibly the most exciting thing he's ever done. He just wishes the ship had windows.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> R ZGVM'G WVZW

_Keep yourself alive, c'mon, keep yourself alive..._

* * *

Space travel turns out to be less interesting than Ford had imagined. Mostly it's just frustrating: he's bursting with questions about where he's going and how it all works, but can't ask any of them thanks to his broken translator. Instead he just lies quietly on his bunk, dozing lightly. The thought _Fidds would love all this_ keeps bubbling to the forefront of his mind, and he keeps pushing it away, forcing his mind to other topics. The most pressing concern is where, exactly, he's being flown to. He knows it's a different hospital, and Polaris had used the word “staffed” which he assumes means “run by sentient life forms instead of robots”. Maybe he can get his translator replaced somewhere, assuming they let him out of hospital at all. Polaris had seemed friendly enough, and as far as Ford can tell all the medical treatment he’s received so far has been legitimate and not malignant, but he just doesn’t have enough information to feel entirely at ease in this dimension.  
Once Ford’s mind starts on a worried train of thought like this he’s capable of stewing for hours on end, so the two-hour trip feels shorter than it is and he’s surprised when the lizard alien returns, hissing something unintelligible to them, and a gentle bump signals their landing. His bed, along with the other patients’, unlocks automatically and floats out of the ship. The ship door opens into a wide bright lobby area. It’s empty, and the beds come to a halt in the middle of the room. The two lizard aliens from the ship hover nearby until a third alien wearing similar black scrubs appears. This one is also lizard-shaped, but their skin is smoother and a pearlescent pink color. The three aliens converse briefly. At some point a fourth alien - this one has wings - arrives, nods at the other three, and starts wheeling one of the beds away. Ford can’t really see what the other patients look like from the angle he’s lying at, but he catches a glimpse of bandages and bright red fur as the bed goes past him.  
            The remaining three aliens each take a bed in different directions, and Ford finds himself going down a long, wide hallway lined with doors and other halls branching off. The most striking difference about this hospital compared to the last one is how much _busier_ it is: the hallway is full of various lifeforms and robots. Many of the aliens are wearing black scrubs, which he takes to mean that they work for the hospital, but several are wearing different clothing, or aren’t clothed at all. Patients, then, or maybe visitors. A lot of them have masks over where he assumes their mouths are. The robots beep and whirr as they zoom past. Most of them are of a similar build to Polaris. The building is well-signposted, but unfortunately Ford can’t read any of the signs. They go through a set of double doors labelled “NZNNZOH: YROZGVIZO, ZVILYRX, ZMW LNMRELILFH”, and emerge into another lobby.   
           The lizard alien wheeling Ford’s bed stops and says something. They seem to be waiting for an answer.   
Ford taps the now-useless metal in his ear. “I’m sorry, I can’t understand you,” he says. “My translator’s broken.”   
Lizard-alien flicks their tail several times and then sprints off. Ford glances around the lobby. He’s a little surprised at how similar it is to an Earth hospital. Of course, the technology they have here is truly alien, but the general atmosphere is similar to emergency rooms he’s been in in the past. Even the smell is the same: death and sickness thinly masked by citrus-scented disinfectant. The stench is enough to make Ford want to leave this instant, but if they do keep him here for a while he could probably learn some fascinating things about the biology of the different species here. Not to mention their medical practices.   
           Lizard-alien returns, holding a larger and shinier version of Ford’s old translator. They fit it onto Ford’s head themselves, which Ford finds highly unnecessary because it’s not like he can’t use his hands.   
“Is it working?”   
“Yes. Thank you.”   
Lizard-alien flicks their tail again and blinks rapidly. Ford has no idea how to interpret this; nonverbal communication with humans is hard enough for him.   
“Great! That’s great! I’m Shorcha, I’ll be your doctor while you stay here. Now, I have your chart from the crit med bay outpost, but I’d like to hear _your_ account of what you’ve been experiencing.”   
“Uh…” Ford isn’t sure how he’d expected an alien to talk, but it definitely wasn’t like this. “Well, for starters, I’m not exactly from this dimension. I came through a portal and landed on a planet - i have no idea where it was in relation to here - and I, I think I couldn’t breathe the atmosphere there? Uh, I passed out there, and woke up in a hospital. Not this one, a different one. I’m sorry, my memory’s a little fuzzy.”   
“Well, that’s not surprising. You had a nasty bout of carbon monoxide poisoning - although your most recent bloodwork came back looking okay - as well as a head injury and some other bumps and bruises. Now, you had a dislocated wrist, but as you can tell that’s healed up pretty well. I’d like to do a basic medical exam, and keep you here overnight to monitor that concussion, but if everything goes well we can release you tomorrow. That sound okay?”  
“Yeah. Uh, can you tell me anything about this planet?”  
Shorcha does another tail flick. “Of course! I’m sorry, you must be _really_ confused right now. What’s your home dimension?”   
“I have no idea, I’m afraid. My species has barely managed to leave our planet, let alone make contact with another dimension.” Ford considers mentioning the fact that Bill has apparently been meddling with humanity for eons, but decides that ‘associate of evil triangle’ isn’t the reputation he wants in this new dimension and keeps his mouth shut.  
“Wow. Hang on, I think we actually have a directory of uncontacted dimensions…” Shorcha pulls a white rectangle out of a hidden pocket and taps it a few times. Ford’s eyes widen when dancing blue lights project upwards from the rectangle, rearranging themselves into a map of some kind. Shorcha drags a finger down the rectangle and the projection-map moves as well. It’s fascinating. “Okay, so you don’t know anything about where your dimension is located?”   
“Um. No.”   
Shorcha makes an odd chattering noise. “I have to say, this is kind of a first for me. Most patients I see are from somewhere in the Pan-Dimensional Federation...wait, do you know what that is?”   
“I don’t, no.”  
“Wow,” Shorcha says again. “Okay, once you’re settled in a room, I’ll try and find you some kind of orientation materials to look at.” The white rectangle suddenly flashes green and beeps. Shorcha glances down at it. “Oh! Speaking of rooms, one just opened up. Good timing, huh?” They wheel Ford out of the lobby and into a small room. It’s windowless, like the rest of the hospital, but brightly lit, and one entire wall is lined with medical equipment. Another wall has several tall cabinets, and the third has a bed. An actual bed, not a hospital one; the kind of bed one might find in a hotel room on Earth. Ford just stares at it. It looks like it’s made of wood.   
“I can transfer you to this bed, if you’d be more comfortable,” Shorcha offers. Ford nods absently. There are _pillows_. Ford hasn’t seen a pillow in about a week now. It’s not the kind of thing he’d expected to miss, really, but he feels a little like crying at the sight of them. They’ve even got pillowcases. It’s amazing.  
He sits carefully on the edge of the bed. Shorcha sits down in a chair next to him; Ford hadn’t even noticed it in his preoccupation with the bed. (there’s a plaid blanket folded up at the end of it.) Shorcha pulls out their rectangle computer and brings up another projection. This time, it’s lines of script. They scroll through it.   
“Okay, I just need to do a little bit of testing to make sure your brain is doing alright. First of all, I’m going to say three words, and I want you to try and remember them and be able to repeat them back in a while.”  
Ford can remember two of the three words. He can also follow Shorcha’s finger with his eyes and walk in a straight line, and his reflexes are declared “adequate”. Shorcha enters all the information into their computer.  
“Well, you’re recovering pretty well. Like I said, I want to keep you here for a night to monitor everything, but hopefully you’ll get released tomorrow. And I think in one of these…” Shorcha goes to the nearest cabinet and pulls out another white rectangle. “Here! This has a basic tourist guide to Ketos, it should give you the most important information you’ll need.”  
Ford takes the rectangle gingerly. “How do I... I mean, how does this work?”   
Shorcha makes another chattering noise. Ford suspects it means they’re laughing at him. “You just press this button on the side to turn it on, and then all the information is preloaded. See?”  
Ford presses the button. The rectangle turns pale blue, and blocks of text pop up. He assumes they’re words, anyway, but the alphabet is like nothing he’s ever seen. “Um. Okay. Is there a translation option?”   
“Yeah, see the symbol in the upper right?” Shorcha points at a little circle with a single character inside. “That’s the logo of the Pan-Dimensional Linguistic Project. It’ll open up a whole menu of translation options.”   
“I just...tap it?”   
Shorcha chatters. It’s definitely a laugh. “Yes. Does your dimension not have touch technology?”  
“Not that I’ve been told about.” Ford taps the circle. New blocks of text appear. Each line is in a different alphabet, all of them unfamiliar and fantastical-looking, and then, a few rows down, he sees the words “LINGUA LATINA”. He taps the phrase, and the original screen reappears. Everything is in Latin, but he can work with that. “Thank you.”   
“No problem.” Shorcha stands up. “Let me know if you have any other questions.” Ford nods absently. If he slides his finger across the screen, the text moves too. It's so fascinating that he doesn't actually read the text at first. He's too tired to properly make sense of the Latin anyway.  
            Ford’s sample size is small, but this is definitely his favorite alien dimension so far. No one is trying to kill him, he can actually breathe, and there are pillows and really neat technology and all kinds of weird and wonderful lifeforms. He must try and find some art supplies in the morning. Right now though, adrenaline and his head injury are catching up to him and he barely manages to take his boots off before succumbing to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> up next: a chapter that, for once, (probably) won't end with ford becoming unconscious


End file.
